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I get asked this question a lot.

See the key is not actually stalk them but to build a genuine, authentic connection with this person you’re reaching out.

Let me give you an example - there’s this founder that I really look up to who I wanted to intern for last summer

He’s the guy who meets all these cool people building billion dollar companies on the weekdays, and who get up at 5 am to go bungee jumping on the weekends. they’re extremists — exactly the type of people I wanted to surround myself with

I also wanted an internship lol

All these networking cows showed me their email drafts - they were basically saying the same thing in different words. “would love to have the opportunity to…” or “was wondering if you were looking for someone…” or “I’d be grateful for the opportunity to learn…”

I looked at them and thought, so all of them want an internship but all of them said they wanted an internship, and all of them attached their resumes (which more or less was the same). That’s all they did?

I thought this was the way. I sat down trying to write the same boring shit but it just felt so inauthentic that I almost felt like I was disrespecting this guy that I looked up to by sending this generic ass email.

So here’s what I wrote instead - I referenced an essay he’d written in 2020 when he was building his first side project. In that essay he talks about this guy from a big german company that took a shot on him by hiring him which led him to co-found his current company.

That essay post had 2 likes maybe 100 people max would have read it. But the founder who wrote it will never forget that moment. It literally changed his life. And me referencing that does 2 things - it tells him I actually care about this person and will care about his advice. It also paints a picture of where I am in my journey, by relating to when he was in a similar situation .

This is how humans connect in real life - over shared experiences. Its tough to do that when cold emailing people which is why its important to do the research.

And why you can’t automate this at scale.

Anyways, hope you like the following cold email that shows a person doing the research and why that worked.